No vocal group has ever had or is ever likely to have two lead vocalists any better than the Temptations of 1964-68. Most of their leads went to David Ruffin — he’s the one beaming, pleading and sobbing on “My Girl”, “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg”, and “I Wish It Would Rain”. Ruffin sang in a deep, potent and gospel-inspired tenor that was pure gorgeous grit, in both the rough-hewn and nervy senses of the word. By contrast, second lead Eddie Kendricks delivered “The Way You Do The Things You Do” and “Get Ready” in a falsetto elegant and honey sweet.
The widespread appeal of his falsetto-driven “Just My Imagination” — a veritable gold standard of sweet vulnerability and a pop and R&B #1 — convinced Kendricks to leave the Temps for a solo career in 1971. Keep On Truckin’ collects four of Kendricks’ early solo albums, including his debut, All By Myself. Standout tracks include the dramatic, lonely ramblings of “This Used To Be The House Of Johnnie Mae” (a rare instance of Kendricks singing in his natural register) and the luminescent funk-pop of “Something’s Burning”.
The latter cut revealed where Kendricks was headed, though he remained a peerless interpreter of ballads. On 1974′s For You, he discovered previously unexpected depths in a pair of Bread wimp-pop classics, “Diary” and “If”. But it was the dance floor that more and more called his name. Indeed, Kendricks is a key figure in the transition from danceable soul to straight-up disco. Historian Peter Shapiro argues that Kendrick’s minor hit single “Girl You Need A Change Of Mind” from 1973′s People…Hold On is the record “that may very well be the foundation of the disco sound,” thanks to its unstoppable groove, extended length, subtle builds and sudden breakdowns.
The following year’s self-titled album expanded the theme with the clarion “Keep On Truckin’”, a pop and R&B chart-topper that took proto-disco to the masses. The album version ebbs and flows for eight glorious minutes. At one point deep in the cut, assisted by nothing but a tambourine and a pair of bongos, Kendricks lightly but forcefully repeats his title imperative until it becomes much more than a call to dance. It means: flow, be, live.
Kendricks was an excellent singer. David Ruffin was a great one. The son of a preacher man, Ruffin and his gospel rasp left the Temptations in 1968. Yet his post-Temps career never paid off with the crossover success that Kendricks later achieved. Ruffin was hindered by his own erratic behavior, and by bad timing. His solo career roughly coincides with those years when Motown head Berry Gordy was focused elsewhere — breaking the Jackson 5, transplanting the company from Detroit to California, making movies with Diana Ross.
The aptly titled The Great David Ruffin collects the irascible soul shouter’s first four solo albums, a quartet that compares favorably with any music being made at the time. Indeed, at least one of them is a stone masterpiece. My Whole World Ended, his debut, begins with Ruffin bellowing his loss amid the taunting flute, swirling strings and heart-swelling melody of the title track: “‘I can’t see you no more’ is all that you said…but you just might as well’ve placed a gun to my head.” Then he moans, terribly: “Oh! Why didn’t you do it?”
Ruffin’s vocals thrill with desperate majesty like King Lear raging on the heath, or Willy Loman dreaming his dreams accompanied by strings and funk rhythms, or a minister preaching his congregation to a frenzy of promised relief. Ruffin is today largely “The Forgotten Man” he sang of on 1969′s Feelin’ Good, but he continued to produce fine work. On Me ‘N Rock ‘N Roll Are Here To Stay, from 1974, for instance, he quakes to recall the torturous moment his wife revealed that “I Saw You When You Met Her”. On the albums collected here, Ruffin always conveys the highest levels of emotional presence imaginable from someone who is, after all, only singing stories, not actually experiencing those events then and there.
Ruffin’s melismas aren’t today’s brittle, caricatured curlicues of emotion, but harsh and tender statements of what it feels like to be a Common Man, a Working Man, a Mortal Man. He punctuates these with grunts, laughs, gasps and screams that crack suddenly into falsettos, startling and subtle at once.
“I’ve lost everything I’ve ever loved,” he admits at one point. But on every track, Ruffin is keenly aware that, like each of us, he’s going to lose it all someday, and his best sides help us remember that these are the stakes of any life. Ruffin died in 1991, only 50, but listen to these discs, and he sounds as necessary as you and me, overcome by each moment’s pleasure or woe. He is demanding nothing less than that attention be paid.
